Brazilian club Santos snub Chelsea purchasing approach — report

It seems Brazil are (somewhat) catching up to football professionalism with the introduction of SAFs, i.e., public limited football clubs/companies, with a few early cases of success (e.g., Cruzeiro) and some not-so-successful ones (e.g., Botafogo). While there already were some SAFs in Brazilian football over the last 20+ years, none were as big as the two aforementioned clubs which were purchased by Ronaldo (yes, that one) and American businessman John Textor, respectively.

With such a path opening up, Todd Boehly and co. were quick to the chase of Santos, one of Brazil’s most iconic clubs as they were the ones to reveal talents to the world such as Pelé and Neymar. However their approach was dismissed, according to a report from the London Evening Standard.

While Brazil is under muddy waters with the combination of political and economic struggles sending the country into a desperate socioeconomic downward spiral since 2014, this does not mean every football club in the country is in a frail financial state to become easy private equity targets. Therefore Boehly-Clearlake will have to adjust their expectations just a little bit, targetting smaller clubs instead to begin building a Manchester City-esque footballing conglomerate.